So Tex Murphy will be back. The Kickstarter for the FMV adventure series’ return, Project Fedora, looked wobbly for a while, especially when aiming for a mighty $450,000, but with some pretty inventive updating they’ve managed to tiptoe over the line with still over a week to go.

I have to say I’m delighted about this one. I loved the Tex Murphy games, as much as my attempts to play them today always end after about four minutes of frustration with the horrible engine. The idea of a brand new edition, in an engine that doesn’t require DOSBOX and the remainder of my ground-away teeth, sounds very appealing.

Following a little story where Tex was kidnapped came a project called The Magnificent 7. The former was intended to get them to 4,500 backers, which they claimed was a number they needed to convince some anonymous “high donors” to take part in the latter. Each time another $6k was added, one of these high donors would add in another $4k. This leapfrogging was intended to help them reach the total by next Monday. But as with so many internethings, it happened far more quickly than expected, the total ticking over Thursday morning. And the crazy thing is, as I write this a bit earlier this afternoon than when you’re reading it, they don’t even know they did it yet! They’re asleep, and will wake up to the news.

I think this has been an exemplary example of how to do a Kickstarter, creating fun, silly events to encourage people to donate, without going insanely overboard on the updates. (The Magnificent 7 thing was a touch annoying for those receiving the emails, but mostly because they weren’t expecting it to happen that quickly.) I’m sure we’ll see an update very soon adding on some stretch goals to the front page, as they see just how much more they can raise in the last week.

Nah – there’s clearly a second shirt under the first one. My theory: like Superman, Chris Jones is ready to transform into Tex Murphy at any moment, and has to wear the costume underneath his regular clothes.

As evidenced by the project’s Kicktraq stats, there was a mysteriously massive surge on June 6th specifically ($61,000 in one day as opposed to roughly $7,000 the day before, if the numbers are to be believed);

And from my experience it doesn’t collect a dime until the kickstarter ends. So that is not necessarily a problem. So in theory, what would stop someone like the guys from Takedown, or Tex Murphy from donating a big bunch of $’s to complete the project. The money will get withdrawn and deposited from their account in quick succession, along with all the individual fan donations.

They could do it, but they would instantly lose some of their own money when kickstarter takes %5. They would probably wait until the end. Also if you were willing to settle for 40k instead of 50k, then you should have just made that your minimum goal and set higher stretch goals.

I could have sworn it was Under a Killing Moon… but searching google I can’t find the box in question. Doesn’t seem to be The Dame Was Loaded or Who Shot Johnny Rock or any of the Tex Murphy games…
There was an image of a sky line and a water tower or something had the LED on top, flashing.

I never got why people thought this project was in danger of failing. They had a massive opening, a steady but slow middle that took them well into success range long before the conclusion of the project, and as these things tend to go, have picked back up again as they approach the final days of the funding period.

Didn’t support this, but I’m sure as hell going to buy it when it’s released. As a gamer who’s been solving adventures since the first Zork, I still consider Pandora Directive one of the best adventure games of all time. It’s always been a great mystery to me, why this kind of gameplay never really caught on. Just imagine Alan Wake if it had been a Tex-like adventure in the daytime sections!